Specifically I'm talking about film trilogies. The trilogy is one of the most popular narrative forms for the film medium; there's a kind of magic to the sequence of Beginning, Middle and End, which I'm guessing stems from the traditional three-act play structure. Act 1 sets up the characters, settings and conflicts, Act 2 expands on them and usually puts the protagonists in some kind of danger, and Act 3 resolves everything and hopefully brings the story to a satisfying conclusion. Understandably the third part of a film trilogy is most often the toughest one to nail. How do you fully resolve a three-part story arc in a way that ties up all the loose ends and doesn't let down your audience?
For the purposes of this article I've included a couple film series that are no longer trilogies, due to the powers involved opting to make an ill-advised fourth installment. But in both cases the franchises stood as trilogies for roughly twenty years, having sufficiently wrapped up the story. Thus I'm including them.
Let's get to it....
HM: Back to the Future
One of the most beloved film franchises of the 80s, this time travel action-comedy trilogy is a childhood favorite of, well, just about everyone who grew up in those days. 1985 high school student Marty McFly unwittingly gets transported to 1955 when his eccentric friend, local middle-aged scientist Dr. Emmett Brown invents a time machine car, and after running into his future parents as teenagers, ends up endangering his own existence. Marty must act as matchmaker to ensure George and Lorraine fall in love, while also working with Dr. Brown's younger self to get back to 1985. With perfect casting and a brilliantly devised plot, this warmhearted sci-fi adventure was a box office sensation and remains one of the all-time great popcorn movies. But the story doesn't end there. In the 1989 sequel Dr. Brown returns to 1985 after a jaunt into the early 21st century to enlist Marty's help in preventing his own children from catastrophic legal woes, and Marty accidentally alters the past when a sports almanac he purchases finds its way into Biff Tannen's hands and he steals the time machine. The rest of the film involves our heroes returning to 1955 to undo the timeline damage Biff has done, but the time machine is struck by lightning with Doc in it, transporting him to the old west. The second film is certainly very ambitious and fun to unravel, but falls short of its predecessor, with a few too many plot holes and joke retreads. The final installment on the other hand played it safe by being essentially a western-infused version of the first film. Marty travels back to 1885 upon learning that Doc Brown was murdered by an outlaw one week after arriving there, and the two must then devise a plan to get the time machine running so they can return to their rightful era. The greatness of this trilogy is mostly due to the first film, but both sequels are a ton of fun and help round out the story of an adventurous teenager and a wild-eyed scientist.
10. The Dollars Trilogy
Clint Eastwood became a star and later a cultural icon thanks to the unexpected success of Sergio Leone's triumvirate of unconventional Western films featuring a taciturn, weathered anti-hero with a marksman's aim. Though A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad & The Ugly weren't intended to be packaged this way, the films' American distributor United Artists marketed them as a trilogy and helped make them a worldwide phenomenon. Leone's genius in revitalizing the Western can't be overstated; he took what had by the 1960s become an antiquated genre depicting white-hat good guys vs. black-hat bad guys, and added grit, graphic violence, and moral ambiguity, transforming the Western into a much more credible, immersive experience. These three films center around Eastwood's "Man With No Name" and can be interpreted as a reverse trilogy; the third film takes place during the Civil War, the second in 1872, and the first in 1873. Eastwood's character goes by different nicknames in each film but in all three he sports his iconic poncho and battered brown hat. Each film is a definitive Spaghetti Western, but as a three-part unit they're iconic.
9. Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Yup, I'm gonna take some flak for this and I don't care. The Star Wars sequel trilogy is one of my favorites. Where George Lucas's prequels for me failed on virtually every level to recapture the magic of the originals, JJ Abrams, Rian Johnson, Kathleen Kennedy et al understood what made Lucas's original vision so special, so imaginative, and so mesmerizing. Yes, the three films could've fit together more tightly had the filmmakers planned out an arc more thoroughly. Yes, the trilogy is sometimes too ambitious for its own good, attempting to cram in too many story beats and MacGuffins. But it also introduced some of the most compelling characters in the entire saga - the plucky scavenger destined for great things, terrified of her own innate gifts; the heir to Darth Vader, so consumed with his own fanboyishness and entitlement he loses himself to the Dark Side; the ex-Stormtrooper who becomes a reluctant hero; the hotshot ace pilot who learns there's more to being a leader than daredevil heroics. Not to mention we got to revisit our old favorite characters. Han went back to smuggling after his son went rogue and his marriage to Leia dissolved. Leia resumed her role as a respected political leader as the First Order sprang up. Luke, disillusioned and broken by his failure as Ben Solo's teacher, cut himself off from the Force and went into hiding, only finding his way again after a new student reached out to him. These films are full of relatable characters and themes, white-knuckle space battles, emotionally charged lightsaber duels, stunning visuals, and a clear good vs. evil conflict. In other words, they're everything a Star Wars trilogy should be.
8. Captain America
Okay, so this trilogy is actually part of a larger film series, but the three films focusing on Steve Rogers are tied so closely together as a standalone arc, not to mention they unexpectedly served as the strongest part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that I had to put them on this list. If you had told me in 2011 that Marvel would've knocked it out of the park so completely with the Captain America character to the point that he's kinda the best part of The Avengers, I'd have knocked you down and pissed on your shoes. The first standalone Cap film, set in the 1940s, chronicles Steve Rogers' rise from a skinny, sickly Brooklyn kid to the very first super-soldier who singlehandedly prevented the sinister Hydra organization from destroying the world. The period setting and quaint, heroic tone reminded me a bit of the Indiana Jones films, and served as a very enjoyable introduction to the Captain America character. But it was the Russo Brothers-helmed sequel The Winter Soldier that really captured the imagination and made Rogers the most compelling Avenger. The James Bond-esque second film sees Rogers fending off a Hydra infiltration of SHIELD, involving three super-helicarriers capable of spying on the entire world, while also coming to grips with his best friend Bucky Barnes (thought dead in the first movie) having been brainwashed and turned into a ruthless assassin. This taut, spellbinding action thriller pushed the boundaries of violence in the MCU but also presented Rogers as an eminently relatable, straightlaced hero (the kind Superman SHOULD have been). To date this film is the apex of the Marvel series in my opinion. The third Cap film is no slouch either however. With the largest scope of any standalone Marvel film, Civil War deals with the aftermath of The Winter Soldier but also both Avengers films, where the US government has decided our superheroes need to be reined in to preserve public safety. A guilt-ridden Tony Stark agrees, but Steve Rogers balks at the idea, and this conflict builds to a massive battle between the fractured Avengers squad. Given that the MCU continued after Civil War, the larger story is not over, but this third film served as a thrilling, climactic conclusion to the series within a series. As of now there are no plans for a fourth Cap film, but the Captain America trilogy has to be considered one of Marvel's best film properties.
7. Planet of the Apes Prequels
The Planet of the Apes prequel trilogy is astonishing to me for multiple reasons. First, when the series was announced I groaned, being fully convinced this was nothing but an artistically bankrupt money grab. But as it turned out, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and its two sequels were thoughtful, unusually quiet, character-driven pieces rife with social commentary, and not the bombastic CGI orgies I feared they would be. Second, the films restored my faith in CG as an effective means of telling a powerful story, via the revelatory central motion-capture performance of Andy Serkis as the series' protagonist Caesar. Serkis is a force of nature in this role, delivering nuance, pathos and sentiment previously unheard of in a computer-generated character. Either the Motion Picture Academy needs to start recognizing motion-capture as real acting or they need to introduce it as a new category. Third, this series bucked an almost universal trend of the third part of a trilogy being unequivocally the weakest entry. War for the Planet of the Apes is more profound, more emotive, and more engaging than either of its predecessors (no small feat considering what strong films Rise and Dawn are), and ended this cinematic trifecta on a startlingly high note. The POTA prequels were a wonderful surprise in an industry full of hi-tech predictability.
For a closer look at all three films, click HERE, HERE and HERE.
